


Par for the Curse

by Sondra



Series: Post-Star One Trilogy [2]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-15
Updated: 2011-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:50:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sondra/pseuds/Sondra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake and Jenna come to Earth in disguise to meet with a rebel agent married to a member of the High Council. Takes place just prior to, during and just after, the events of "Rumours of Death". A sequel to "Aftermath: Blakes Story".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Par for the Curse

  **(A sequel to Aftermath: Blake's Story)** 

Sula Chesku, wife of the High Councillor and personal advisor to President Servalan, switched off the vis-screen in her elegantly furnished living room and smiled with satisfaction. Not a word on the Federation's nightly newscast about the rebel uprising which had been raging for over a week. That meant that all was still going well. If the Federation had managed to seize the upper hand, they'd be flaunting their success without restraint.

Soft footsteps and the deferential tone of a well-mannered servant interrupted her musing. "The Federation emissary from Outer Gow has arrived, Madam."

"Thank you, Stev. Show her in, please."

A moment later a statuesque blonde woman of aristocratic bearing and her tall, uniformed bodyguard stood in the archway. Her face was concealed by an intricately embroidered veil, his by the visor of his helmet. "The Honorable Ambassador Tristella," announced the butler.

"Welcome to Earth, Your Excellency," Sula greeted her, and to Stev, "That will be all."

As the servant withdrew, Tristella murmured graciously, "May good fortune smile upon the President's banquet."

"May its grandeur evoke the spirit of Atlay," Sula responded.

"And may the soul of Le Grande be resurrected," contributed the Ambassador's companion in a low, ironic voice.

Sula heaved a sigh of relief and laid her hands on the man's forearms, a warm gesture of welcome that instantly belied the moments of diplomatic posturing they'd just passed through. "Come this way," she beckoned in an urgent whisper.

They followed her into the next room, then down a long, narrow staircase. "It's safe to talk here," she said as they reached the bottom. "The basement is soundproof."

Upon that assurance, the "Ambassador" removed her veil and the "guard" his helmet.  "Roj Blake," he announced. "Just in case the password left any doubt."

"It didn't," Sula replied.

"And this is my pilot, Jenna Stannis."

"And where is your ship?"

"At the Federation Spaceport," Jenna said. "Where else would you expect a ship carrying a Federation official on Federation business to make planetfall?"

"Yes, our false identity papers worked like a charm," Blake said. "I have an assistant who's very good with computers." _Although not as good as_...

Jenna guessed what Blake was thinking. _And neither is the computer "as good as"_ , she added silently in her own mind. _And neither is the ship_... Aloud she said, "The only aspect of our arrival that raised an eyebrow or two was our choice of transport."

"We came in on a Mark 10 pursuit ship which our rebel associates inherited during the Intergalactic War," Blake clarified.

He remembered only too well the traumatic aftermath of that "inheritance": when he'd elected to stay behind on the severely damaged _Liberator_ and Jenna had elected to stay with him, risking her life to attend to the wound which had prompted his decision in the first place. They had very nearly died of cold and asphyxiation in the small area Zen had sealed off during the shutdown protocol. They _would_ have died of cold and asphyxiation, had not Deva and Klyn miraculously appeared in that stolen Mark 10 and rescued them...

"But we explained to the Port authorities that it was the fastest craft available," Jenna continued, "and as we had such a long distance to travel and didn't wish to be late for the official festivities..."

It had, in fact, been an eminently plausible explanation: Outer Gow was located in the same far-away sector of space as Gauda Prime, the planet where Blake and Jenna had been based ever since Deva and Klyn picked them up.

It hadn't been an easy decision for Blake – walking away from the _Liberator_ and his crew. Leaving them without a clue as to his whereabouts – indeed, _mis_ leading them as to his whereabouts by sending Zen a patently false farewell message. It especially hadn't been easy when a furtive consultation with Orac disclosed that _Liberator_ was in the hands of a squad of Federation troops and that Avon was their prisoner...

But it had been necessary, Blake decided, drawing what solace he could from Orac's revelation that Avon had allies: a woman he'd picked up on the planet where his life capsule had landed, and a member of the very squad of troopers who'd captured him – a member who wasn't really a member, but a deserter from the Federation, masquerading as a space captain...  Because of these allies, Orac predicted that Avon would, with high probability, regain control of the ship.

So Blake had yielded to Deva's insistence that he sever his ties with his former associates and return to Gauda Prime, where a new, and enticingly pivotal, role in the struggle for freedom awaited him. The Federation had suffered heavy losses in their battle against the Andromedans, its own hold on power rendered suddenly shakier than the Resistance had ever dared to dream possible. The Resistance expected, within a matter of months, to be in a position to overthrow Servalan's government. When they did, simultaneous uprisings were to be launched on the colonized worlds as well. Someone had to oversee that aspect of the plan, Deva said, someone whom the wide variety of disparate rebel factions would be willing to close ranks behind. Someone like Roj Blake.

What made it all seem reasonable (even Avon would see the logic in it, Blake had told himself at the time) was that Deva's showing up to rescue them had not been just a lucky coincidence. Avalon had sent the Mark 10 to retrieve him; Avalon had known exactly where the _Liberator_ was at the moment when Jenna and Vila alerted Space Command Headquarters to the impending alien invasion. She'd known because members of the High Council had known – because one member of the High Council in particular harbored a hidden rebel agent in his household. It was this highly placed secret agent who would be in a position to insure success of the crucial Earth-based portion of the scheme.

And so, Blake thought with mounting excitement, as he listened to Sula Chesku lay out the timetable for the impending coup, this was the moment he'd been waiting for all these months (in a deeper sense, the moment he'd been waiting for all his life). This was the moment that would justify all the years of killing and destruction, all the suffering he'd endured, all the suffering he'd asked others to endure. This was the moment that would still the gnawing voice of guilt in his gut and end the ache in his heart over having abandoned Avon to that roulette wheel of sterile statistics. This moment and the victory it portended would prove once and for all that he _had_ been right...

And to hear Sula talk, the stage was already well-prepared, the multifocal uprising intended both to distract from, and lend support to, the central seizure of power already well underway. "We timed it to take advantage of the President's absence," she explained. "Everything began while Servalan was visiting Auron."

"Auron?" Jenna repeated, startled.

"Yes. Does that mean something to you?"

"We know someone who came from there," Blake said quietly.

" _Knew_ someone who came from there," the pilot corrected, barbs in her voice.

"You've no proof she's dead, Jenna – "

"You've no proof she isn't!"

Although Jenna had elected to accompany Blake to Gauda Prime, she'd never quite made her peace with the abrupt manner of their departure. She had tried to convince Blake to teleport back to the _Liberator_ to rescue Avon; she had nearly teleported back there herself without him. But at least they knew Avon was alive. 

And they knew Vila was alive because Orac reported that the thief had sent a distress call from the planet Chenga and that _Liberator_ was on its way to pick him up. In Cally's case, however, they'd had no information at all. "And so what exactly is it you think we can do for her by _not_ going to Gauda Prime?" Blake had asked pointedly. Rationally Jenna had no answer for that. But it still _felt_ to her like they had deserted the woman.

"Of course once she got word of what was happening on Earth," Sula continued, "Servalan headed straight home. She's been back for two days now. That's why my husband's not around. The High Council has been in emergency session around the clock ever since, trying to devise a foolproof plan for crushing the rebellion."

Blake frowned with concern. "But that's not going to happen, is it?"

"Not unless someone on our side commits a really stupid blunder. We've had the element of surprise working for us, and, of course, Security has been concentrating for weeks on that ridiculous Presidential banquet." Sula smiled. "Servalan's such a tasteless megalomaniac, she just can't endure being cheated out of the ostentatious celebration circumstances prevented her from holding when she first took office. But tell me, Blake, about your plans."

"Well, as you know," the man responded, "they're intimately tied to your own. When we receive confirmation from you that your power is secure here on Earth, I shall give the signal for our people to move against prearranged Federation targets on the colonized worlds. We've established a base of operations in each sector to coordinate all rebel military activity there, a place where supplies can be obtained and temporary refuge taken, if necessary. For example, Horizon in Sector 9 under Ro's leadership, Lindor under Sarkoff, one of the planets in the Beta Region under Avalon, Morphaniel under Del Grant--"  Sula blanched, and Blake reacted to her reaction. "What?"

"Nothing. I've heard the name before, that's all."

"Grant's? I should hope so. Last year he and Avon saved the entire population of the planet Albian from nuclear extinction." Sula turned even paler. "Are you sure you don't know him?" Blake persisted.

"Of course I don't know him!" The response was fairly shouted. Then she recovered her composure. "I'm sorry. You must forgive me. It would seem my nerves aren't as steady as I'd like to think they are." _So he survived his arrest for the bank fraud, after all.  It was him on the _Liberator _.  And he was on Albion with Del a year ago. How I wish I could ask you about him, Blake! At least ask if he's still alive! But then you might suspect who else I am, and you mustn't because he mustn't ever find out... It's inhuman sometimes what this struggle demands of us._

"It's inhuman sometimes what this struggle demands of us," Blake said. "It's a wonder that any of us have a single unfrayed nerve fiber left in our bodies. When I think of the people we have to be willing to lose..." _And of the infinite variety of ways in which we can lose them: My family. The comrades the Federation forced me to denounce. Gan. Inga. Cally. Avon..._

 _I let you go, my love. And, Del, my dear brother, I've let you go on all this while thinking I'm dead, thinking I died in agony..._

"I think Blake's trying to tell you not to be so hard on yourself," Jenna said, with a smile. "What I'd like to know is who's going to tell him."

As if arranged by fate to demonstrate the very phenomenon under discussion, a sudden series of taps on the cellar window caused both Blake and Jenna to leap to their feet, pulling on their respective masks and whipping out their guns. Sula, however, recognized the pattern of sounds as a prearranged code. "Relax," she said. "It's one of my people."

"I didn't realize you were expecting anyone," Blake muttered.

Sula opened the window and offered a helping hand to the tall, slender, red-headed young man climbing through. "What on earth are you doing here, Hob?" she exclaimed. He glanced nervously at her masked companions and said nothing. "No, it's all right. These are friends," she declared and then, turning to those "friends" – even more emphatically – "It's all right."

The guns finally disappeared from sight, and the helmet and veil were removed once again.

"I had to come, Sula," Hob started, his voice filled with agitation. "I couldn't risk a transmission being intercepted, and I knew Chesku wouldn't be here, so – "

"You were right to try the cellar first," the woman said. "It's best none of the household staff sees you. So, tell us – "

Blake noted with admiration how she used her authority to reinforce her subordinate's attention to security and how she matter-of-factly included Jenna and himself in the invitation to disclosure. She's a natural leader, this one, he thought. She'll be perfect to head up the new People's Council...

"Early this morning," Hob began, "our forces seized Central Security Headquarters."

"Wonderful!" said Blake.

"Congratulations!" said Jenna.

Sula barely reacted at all. "It was on the agenda," she said calmly, and turned back to Hob. "Well? What's the problem?"

"The problem is, we can't get them to leave."

"I don't understand. You're supposed to have left a contingent in charge and – "

"Moved on to the next set of targets on the list," Hob cut in. "Yes, I know. But we can't get _any_ of them to leave. The situation's out of control. Discipline has broken down completely. The men didn't just restrain the Federation personnel on duty. They massacred them."

"What?" cried Blake in horror.

Sula's expression of outrage sounded a shade more pragmatic. "The bloody idiots! Do you mean to stand there and tell me they left no one alive?"

"Well, certainly no one on duty in Interrogation Division at the time. And none of the guards. And none of the technical staff. They did, however, hold a handful of higher echelon types for – questioning." The hesitancy in Hob's voice before he uttered that final word told his audience more than they wanted to hear.

Blake was shaking his head in disbelief, wondering if he looked as sick as he felt, unprecedentedly at a loss for words. Jenna did look as sick as Blake felt. Sula gestured to Hob to be patient. To the others she said, "You've got to realize that a lot of these people have lost relatives or friends inside those walls."

"I know all about losing people!" Blake snarled. "What the hell were we just talking ab – ?"

"A few of them have been through Federation torture themselves."

" _I've_ been through Federation torture myself!"

"Then you should understand," the woman said simply.

"Sula, why are you making excuses for them?" Blake exclaimed.

"She's not," Hob interjected. "She's just trying to explain that what we're dealing with here isn't pathological savagery. My people aren't sadists, you know."

"What we're dealing with here is a threat to our whole bloody timetable!" Blake shot back.

"Not to mention a potential public relations problem," Jenna put in.

"I know that," Sula said with a sigh. "Hob, we must do something to rectify this situation."

"Don't you think I tried? Balon and I both tried, but we were shouted down like a pair of dissidents at a Federation show trial. Only they were calling _us_ 'Federation apologists'!"

Sula ran her hand through her hair nervously, then said, "Very well. I've no choice but to go over there myself."

"I think that would be wise," Hob responded.

"We'll come with you," Blake offered.

"Blake, it's too dangerous!" Jenna protested. "You might be recognized."

"Blake?" echoed Hob. "Roj Blake?"

"I rest my case," the pilot murmured.

The rebel leader was not impressed. "We may be able to help, Jenna," he said forcefully.

"You may at that," Sula agreed. "Your name carries considerable weight with my people. The tales of your exploits are a legend from which they draw inspiration."

"So let's see if inspiration can be put to practical use, shall we?"

Sula nodded. "Wait outside for us," she instructed Hob, and to Blake and Jenna, "Cover your faces again."

The young soldier departed the way he had arrived, and the other three made their way up the staircase. Sula summoned the butler. "If my husband calls while I'm out," she said, "tell him I've accompanied the delegation from Outer Gow to dinner and that I'll be escorting them to their guest quarters at the Presidential compound afterward."

Listening to Sula's cover story, Jenna was reminded of the _real_ Outer Gow official they'd once met – and of the traumatic events surrounding that encounter. "I can think of another reason for us not to do this," she whispered to Blake.

"Well, I can't," came the exasperated rejoinder.

Jenna heaved a sigh. There was simply no arguing with the unquenchable fire in that voice.

                                                *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Central Security Headquarters was one of the most universally feared buildings in all the Federated worlds. Even its counterparts on other planets were known to be just that – counterparts. Which is to say, derivative copies of the unholy original, and it was whispered within the circle of those who claimed to know that none of the monster's many limbs could quite match the horrific nature of the Medusic head from which they had sprung. Amongst those who actually knew, nothing was whispered – their ritual silence standing as testimony to the impossibility of fully rendering that horror in words.

One thing was certain, though: The Federation's fiercest enemies, the "political criminals" it deemed a threat to its power to define and control "civilization", always ended up here. They might be caught on a planet millions of spacials away, they might be tried there, they might even serve their terms of imprisonment there – but if they were judged to be sufficiently dangerous, sooner or later they would be brought before the New Calendar Grand Inquisitors on Earth to face modern versions of ancient arts of terror: flesh-rending tortures and mind-bending drugs and machines that could wipe out a lifetime of memories in a day, replacing them with convincing fabrications more to the Federation's liking...

When Blake and Jenna followed Hob and Sula into the heart of this hellish place, they could smell death even before they saw it. Blood-spattered corpses were everywhere: in hallways, in stairwells, sprawled across desks, even sitting upright in chairs with wide, frightened eyes staring fixedly at nothing. 

Most had been shot, but many had been beaten as well: limbs broken, fingers hacked off, faces pounded beyond mortal recognition. Hob's assurances that the bulk of this carnage had followed, not preceded, the actual killings did little to alleviate its visceral impact. Overcome, Jenna ran to the nearest waste disposal chute and vomited into it violently.

But to Blake the sight of life proved more appalling than the sight or stench of death. As they entered the Central Records Room, the floor was littered with hundreds of meters of unravelled computer tape and countless scores of dented and damaged holodiscs. And Sula's rebel troops – at least logic _told_ him they were Sula's rebel troops – sat around in the midst of it all, eating, drinking, smoking and playing catch with the personal effects of the men and women they had slaughtered. Crude laughter accompanied the flying back and forth of cosmetics cases, combs and key rings.

Hob glanced at Sula as if to say "I told you." Sula glanced at Blake, mutely beseeching him for help. Jenna glanced at Sula with disgust and at Blake with anxiety, reminded again that the rebel leader had been in this place once before and recalling how much agony even the therapeutic reliving of that experience had caused him...

Blake looked at none of them. His face, at first unreadable, grew gradually flushed and rigid, the eyes two seething pits of black fury. "Leave it!" he screamed suddenly, his voice cutting through all the other voices like a laser knife, stunning the room into instant, total silence.

"That one with you, Sula?" taunted a cigar-puffing rebel, his legs dangling down from the desktop on which he sat.

"Where'd he get the fancy Federation uniform?" called out another, adding with a nervous giggle, "You'd better watch it, Partner. You could get mistaken for one of the bad guys, and around here that could prove unhealthy."

"Around here that could also prove ubiquitous," Blake retorted.

"Ubiqui--who?"

"He's saying you _all_ look like bad guys to him," Hob translated quietly.

"Shut up, Hob!" someone yelled.

"No, _you_ shut up!" Sula yelled back. "To answer the original question, this is Roj Blake, and he'd like a word with you, if that isn't too much to ask."

A hush fell over the room at the articulation of that long-revered name. Blake seized the moment immediately, perfectly well aware of how easily he could lose it again. "You're supposed to be soldiers of the anti-Federation Resistance," he bellowed. "You're supposed to be fighting for the freedom and dignity of man. Where's the dignity in the spectacle you're creating right now?  Where's the honor in it?"

"You don't understand, Blake – " someone started.

"I _do_ understand!"

"The people we've executed here were no better than animals."

"Yes, and it's contagious, isn't it?" Blake paused, his gaze panning over his audience. "Well, perhaps you're right. Because I certainly don't understand how men who've risked their lives for liberty can choose, at the very threshold of their victory, to betray it."

"What do you mean 'choose to betray it'?"

"Just that: _choose_ to betray it. Sometimes a man can be forced to betray his dreams. In a place like this, it happens all the time. A man is tortured until he can't stand the pain, so he tells his interrogators what they want to know. Relief from agony takes precedence over loyalty to his comrades. That I can understand. But this? To choose pointless revenge over – "

"Mercy?" someone suggested mockingly.

"No – prudence!" Blake shot back. "You want to win, don't you? You know there's a strategy to this war we're waging, and your actions here today are part of it – _were_ part of it until you let passion get the better of your common sense. Where are you supposed to be now? Do you even remember? And do you remember why? Do you know that there's more than just the fate of the Earth at stake? Do you know that you have comrades on a dozen different worlds waiting for your triumph here to signal the start of their own battle for liberty? But if you persist in this senseless orgy of vengeance, you'll be betraying those comrades – and you'll be doing it without anyone holding a gun to your head or a laser probe to your genitals."

Now the room reverberated with a different sort of silence, the silence of embryonic shame. Blake stooped down and picked up a wallet which had been amongst the items being batted back and forth. He removed a picture of a young woman holding an infant. "The wife and child of one of the 'animals' you 'executed'," he suggested. "Or perhaps the daughter and grandchild. At any rate, not themselves ever guilty of the crimes perpetrated here and not deserving of the disrespect with which you've handled this." He replaced the picture in the wallet and laid it aside.

"Don't think for one minute that I don't empathize with your pain," he continued. "I was a prisoner in this very place seven years ago. I was drugged and beaten and tortured here. The Federation wanted me to publicly renounce my allegiance to the Freedom Party. I refused. And I kept on refusing. When they discovered that they couldn't break my will by abusing my body, they went to work on my mind. They drained my memory and reconstructed it according to their own blueprint. After that I consented to everything they wanted because they'd made me _believe_ that they were right, that I'd been misguided. A lot of good people were killed in the course of that manipulation, including my own family. And who knows how many more were turned away from the ideas of the Freedom Party because I denounced it as corrupt and subversive..." Blake stopped now, trembling with unconcealed emotion.

He bares everything, Jenna thought, looking at him with awe. Where does he get the strength to be that open, that vulnerable? I could never expose myself that way to anyone, let alone a hostile crowd...

But the crowd wasn't hostile now. "Good Lord, Man," whispered the rebel who had first taunted Blake. "You should be standing in line with the lot of us to take your turn at the bastards. If you're not entitled to revenge, who is?"

"No one!" came the thundering reply. "Don't you understand yet? Revenge isn't the recompense you think it's going to be. It doesn't end the pain, it perpetuates it. And if you – "

He got no further for, at that instant, a piercing scream filled the air. "Oh, my God," Jenna exclaimed. "We forgot about the ones they _didn't_ kill!"

"Where?" Blake demanded, whirling on Hob.

The young man swallowed hard as a second, even longer, scream eclipsed the first. "Follow me," he said.

 

One floor below the room where Blake had been trying to steer Sula's frenzied rebels back to sanity, a pudgy, bearded, balding weasel of a man was bending over the bloody form of his dying prisoner. A handful of rebels observed from a discreet distance as the interrogator examined a glistening knifeblade encrusted with particles of flesh and other human tissue. "Ruined," he pronounced dramatically. "Useless", and tossed the weapon aside. Then he beckoned to one of the watching rebels. "Fetch me a new one, lad."

"Yes, Sir. Right away," the youth responded, and hurried off.

The remaining rebels shoved a second, as yet unharmed, prisoner towards the interrogator. "Give this one a try, why don't you, Shacklee? He looks too frightened to _need_ a knife."

"Yes, in a moment," Shacklee assured them, his eyes still fixed on his first victim. He rubbed his hands together with obscene relish. "All right, Controller, one last question. Identify Bartolomew!"

The man on the floor could hardly speak. Shacklee leaned closer, putting his ear to the prisoner's lips. No one else in the room even heard the agonized whisper. "Councillor Chesku is still..."

They only heard Shacklee  mutter, "Damn!" as the dying man expired without finishing his sentence.

But that frustrating failure to extract the last possible piece of information from his victim only fueled the interrogator's ardor to move on to the next one. He seized the ashen, quivering man, whose hands were bound behind his back and struck him hard across the face, knocking him to the floor. 

The prisoner landed beside the corpse, patches of cruelly carved flesh nearly touching his own. He began to howl hysterically.

"There's a top secret security file we haven't been able to access," Shacklee said. "You're going to give me the access code."

"I-I-I-can't," stammered the prisoner.

"Oh, yes, you can."

"But I don't know it!"

"Liar."

"I'm not lying. I swear it. I didn't have clearance for – "

Shacklee kicked him in the groin.  The outcry of pain which followed prevented any of them from hearing the approaching footsteps of the people from upstairs.

Blake and Hob paused at the doorway, the two women close behind. "What the hell's going on in there?" Sula murmured.

"Well now, that's just a little bit obvious, isn't it?" Blake returned. He pushed past her, waded into the room, seized Shacklee by the throat and flung him against the wall.

"Nothing's obvious," Sula said to the others. "I've never even seen that man."

"He's not one of yours?" Jenna exclaimed.

"No, he isn't," Sula answered with deepening concern. And to Hob, "Just what sewer did they fish that creature out of?"

"If he's not one of yours, you'd best not let him see you," Jenna advised, starting forward.

"Right," Sula agreed. "You go with her, Hob."

Inside the room Sula's men had pulled Blake off Shacklee and were trying (with little success, Jenna noted) to force a pair of handcuffs on him. "Hey! Leave him alone!" Hob ordered sharply. "He's with the Commander and me." And, thumbing at Jenna, "So's this one."

Reluctantly the rebels released Blake, who noted Sula's absence and the fact that Hob was avoiding using any of their names. For their prisoner's benefit? Or for their butcher's?

A minute later his unvoiced question was answered, as Hob continued, "Which is more than _you_ can say for _that_ dirtbag."

"Slow down, Hob," snarled one of the man defending the interrogator. "This here is Shacklee. We released him from solitary confinement in a punishment cell. He's been helping us ever since. He's a sympathizer with our cause."

Blake swore under his breath.

"He is," the rebel insisted. "And he's very good at making prisoners talk. He questioned several of the top brass before we executed them. And he's going to make this one tell us how to break into Security's top secret files just as soon as Lars gets back with a new knife."

All eyes gravitated then towards the "old" knife, and Hob gagged, covering his mouth with his hand. Blake bent over the weapon, studying it carefully. "Handkerchief, please," he requested of Jenna, then to Shacklee's apologist, "And it never occurred to you to wonder where he acquired such skills?"

"What difference does it make where? And who the hell are you, anyway, to come waltzing in here, taking charge of things?"

"No names!" Hob cut in before Blake could reply. "No names at all."

Now Blake was wrapping the flesh-studded knife in Jenna's handkerchief, careful to avoid touching it directly. She flinched as he handed the gruesome parcel back to her. "Tuck that away somewhere for safekeeping, will you?"

"You want to know about names?" interjected Shacklee. "Let me get into that file for you, and you might even learn Bartolomew's real name. Just think – Central Security's top agent!" He started forward.

"Stay where you are!" Blake barked. "I've half a mind to shoot you myself, but I wouldn't want to waste the ammunition."

"I'd be surprised if this lot has any ammunition left," Jenna said drily.

All this time Sula had been listening at the door, taking care not to be seen. At the mention of Bartolomew, she noiselessly stole away...

Inside the room Blake helped Shacklee's surviving prisoner to stand up. "You all right?" he asked coldly.

The man nodded. "Can you untie me?"

"That depends. You work here?"

The man hesitated for a minute, then seemingly realized the futility of lying. He nodded yes, without meeting his questioner's gaze.

"In that case, no," Blake said simply. "Go sit down in the corner and don't give us any trouble." Then he turned his attention to the mutilated corpse. "Shacklee do all this?" he inquired of Sula's people.

The men traded nervous glances with one another, questioning the meaning of Blake's question with their eyes: Was this unidentified, but obviously trusted, associate of Sula's asking whether they had helped? Finally one of them mumbled, "Yes."

Blake emitted a snort of disgust. "What's the matter with you people? Don't you care what kind of slime you allow on your team?" Then he walked over to Shacklee. "Get out!" he ordered in a low, menacing voice. "If you ever show your face around here again, I'll see to it you're tried for murder."

Like a gutter rat flushed from a garbage pile, Shacklee scampered from their sight.

 

Unnoticed by the men in the Central Records Room (though noticing that they seemed significantly subdued in the wake of Blake's speech to them), Sula slipped into a small private office off the main corridor. She switched on the computer console in that office and began typing.

The words "RETRIEVE FILE 200Z/64/403" appeared on the screen, followed by the computer's response: "ACCESS RESTRICTED. PLEASE ENTER AUTHORIZATION CODE."

Unhesitatingly she typed "200Z/64/403."

"NAME?" queried the screen.

"BARTOLOMEW," she typed back.

With an acquiescent beep, the computer printed: CODE NAME AND CLEARANCE NUMBER CONFIRMED. PREPARE FOR SCAN."

Obediently she placed the palm of her left hand against the plate which now extended itself from the side of the console and stared into the blinking scanner which simultaneously protruded from the top. In less than a minute, the screen flashed the words: "PALM AND RETINAL PRINT CONFIRMED. ACCESS GRANTED."

An instant later she was looking at the cover page of a top secret Security file and at her own face staring back at her. Beneath the photograph was the name BARTOLOMEW and the number which identified the subject of the file and the individual calling it up as one and the same.

Memories came flooding back to her ...of the sweetest/most bitter time in her life... of the noblest/most difficult decision she'd ever made... of the man who had known her as...

"BORN: ANNA GRANT" read the first line of the biographical summary on the following page to which she had scrolled.

But Sula read no further. She simply typed in a delete command and validated it with her clearance number, then heaved a deep sigh of relief as the file vanished before her eyes, gone forever from the Federation's records...

As she started to rise from her chair, the wall chrono caught her attention, reminding her it was nearly time for the Federation's final newscast of the night. She resumed her seat and punched the requisite button to obtain an outside channel. Hot and cold shivers of sudden foreboding ran up and down her spine as the solemn voice of the viscast reporter declared: "We interrupt our regular programming to bring you this special announcement from President Servalan and members of the High Council..."

 

Hob handcuffed the prisoner Blake had rescued to a chair on the other side of the long room. The rebels who had been present for the previous interrogation were dragging the corpse down the corridor to deposit it with the victims of Shacklee's earlier handiwork, and Jenna was speaking privately to Blake. 

"You kept that knife to scan it for prints, didn't you?"

"That's right."

"You think he's a Federation interrogator, don't you?"

"It wouldn't surprise me in the least."

The pilot chuckled. "That's one way to avoid becoming part of a massacre. But if he worked here all along, why didn't the men he was questioning recognize him?"

"I doubt the elite mixes much with Interrogation staff."

"But if you're so sure the rebels are going to win, why _didn't_ you hold him for trial? Why did you let him go?"

Blake sighed. "The only murder we _know_ he committed was committed with the complicity of our people. I want to extinguish the lust for revenge, Jenna, not punish it. Besides, Shacklee's finished regardless of what happens next. If our people succeed, he's out of a job. And if by some damnable quirk of fate they don't, he still can't come back here." Jenna looked puzzled. Blake thumbed in the direction of the surviving Federation captive. "He may not have recognized Butcher Boy before, but he's singularly unlikely to forget his face now." Comprehending at last, the pilot smiled.

At that moment, the young rebel called Lars walked into the room. "I'm sorry I took so long – " he began, frowned uncertainly at Shacklee's absence, then noticed Blake standing off to one side. A look of absolute horror came over his face, and before anyone realized what he was doing or could stop him, he lunged at Blake with the knife he'd brought for Shacklee, screaming hysterically, "Another one! Another one!"

"Lars, no!" Hob cried out from the other side of the room, but he was too far away to intervene physically in time.

Blake saw the attack coming and immediately pushed Jenna out of the way of the flashing blade. That action cost him the seconds he needed to shield his own face, and Lars struck out wildly, drawing the knife across Blake's left eye, cutting wide and deep, determined to plunge the weapon into the socket...

By this time Jenna and Hob were on top of him, pulling him off his victim and disarming him – while Blake was on his knees, clutching his face and gasping in pain, as blood spurted from the wound.

"I thought they were all dead," Lars mumbled in confusion. "There wasn't supposed to be another one."

Suddenly Hob understood. "You fool!" he shouted at the boy. "This isn't a Federation trooper! This is Roj Blake!"

Lars' eyes widened. "Blake?" he echoed brokenly. "But the uniform... I thought... Blake?"

Jenna meanwhile was kneeling beside the rebel leader, frantically trying to stop the bleeding with her bare hands. "I need a pressure dressing!" she panted desperately. "Someone get me a pressure dressing!" Blake just continued to wail like a wounded animal.

"Blake! Jenna!" called another frantic voice, and Sula tore into the room. "We have to get out of here. I've just seen a special news bulletin. Servalan and the High Council – " She stopped in her tracks. "Oh, my God! What happened?"

"Lars stabbed Blake in the eye with a knife," Hob answered. "He mistook him for a Federation guard."

"He's a lunatic!" Jenna hissed. "He should be stood up against a wall and put out of his misery!"

Sula's face was a mixture of sorrow and compassion. "Lars' father was tortured by the Federation," she murmured helplessly. "They blinded him."

"Where's that God damn pressure dressing?" Jenna shouted. She had Blake flat on the floor now, barely conscious. Her hands were soaked in his blood.

"Hob," Sula directed. "Go upstairs and tell the men to prepare for withdrawal. The Federation has moved against virtually all our other positions. And send down  someone to help with Blake. Make sure he brings a pressure dressing and the strongest painkiller available."

"A pain killer?" Hob repeated. "In this place?"

"Yes, in this place!" Sula answered. "Use your head. There'd have to be, wouldn't there?"

Hob nodded and sprinted from the room.

Jenna cradled Blake's head in her lap and stroked his cheek with the hand that was not applying pressure to the wound. "Sula," he whispered, roused to greater lucidity by her words, "what went wrong?"

"Oh, for the love of – !" Jenna couldn't even bring herself to complete the phrase. "Blake, don't try to talk," she begged. "Don't even try to think. Just lie still and let us take care of you."

"Sula – " he repeated.

The woman dropped to her knees beside Jenna. "I don't know exactly, Blake," she said. "It would appear that the High Council was more on top of things than they let on these past two days. Of course it didn't help that my men decided to camp out here all day instead of being where they were supposed to be."

"Sula, you've got to go," Blake babbled frantically. "Whatever happens, you can't be found here."

"I will go, Blake. We'll all go. Just as soon as – " She broke off. "Oh, thank God."

The medical supplies had arrived in the hands of the cigar-smoking rebel from upstairs. "Holy Cygnus!" he exclaimed, spotting Blake, and rapidly extinguished the cigar. A half dozen others, including Balon, had come down with him, while Hob had remained upstairs preparing the evacuation.

Jenna applied the pressure dressing to Blake's eye, finally managing to staunch the flow of blood. At the same time, Sula injected him with a quick-acting narcotic.

Lars remained in a state of near-catatonic shock, repeating over and over again, "I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to."

" _Lars_ did this to Blake?" gasped the man who had delivered the dressing and painkiller.

"Yes, Valis," Sula confirmed. "He was confused by the uniform. He mistook Blake for one of the 'bad guys.'" The colloquial expression sounded strange rolling off her tongue, but she was making a point by employing it – a point Valis didn't miss.

"Holy Cygnus," he repeated, shaking his head.

As Blake's color gradually returned to normal, Jenna helped him to his feet. "We have to get medical treatment for him," she said to Sula. "And it can't be here on Earth."

"Sula has other priorities – " Blake protested.

"Damn it, Blake, do you want to lose that eye?"

"If I get you clearance to leave on your ship, have you somewhere to go?" Sula asked. Jenna nodded. "Very well. Valis, I want you to go with them to the Spaceport. Jenna came here as Ambassador Tristella from Outer Gow and Blake as her bodyguard. Now you'll be the bodyguard. So get a uniform."

"Where?"

"Where do you think?"

Valis colored. "Oh."

"Try to find one without blood all over it."

"I'll get one for you," Balon offered, and left in search of a suitably tidy corpse.

"What about him?" Jenna asked, indicating Lars.

Sula turned to Blake. "It's your decision," she said. "I'll have him up on charges if that is your wish."

Blake shook his head. "I don't want him punished. He meant me no harm."

"Meant you no – ?" broke from Valis in astonishment.

"He didn't realize who I was," Blake said quietly, and to Sula, "Please. Hasn't there been enough senseless bloodshed?"

She nodded her assent and gave him a quick embrace. "I'll be back with your official authorization for takeoff in a minute. We may as well reap some positive benefit from our time in this place."

Hob arrived downstairs just as Sula was preparing to go upstairs. "Everyone's ready," he reported. "But I'm afraid there's not much we can do to conceal what happened here."

She gave him an understanding pat on the chest. "I need a minute or two longer to forge a takeoff pass for Blake and Jenna."

Next Balon arrived with a remarkably clean Federation uniform. "I think this should be about your size," he declared.

Valis started to undress, then remembered Jenna. "Pardon, Ma'am," he said with a sly smile, turning his back.

"Don't mind me," she snickered, the gesture of propriety striking her as too bizarre for words under the circumstances.

Sula returned even sooner than they thought she would and presented Jenna with the needed official documentation.  "I dated it yesterday," she said. "Just in case anyone at the Spaceport has been notified of who controlled Central Security today."

That reminder of their impending plight brought an expression of anguish to Blake's face. Sula gripped his arms. "All is not lost," she said steadily. "Our plans for the day of the banquet are still intact. We will not fail you, Blake."

"And we will not fail you," he promised.

"Let's go already!" Jenna said. "No one's going to get a _chance_ to fail anyone if we're not out of here before Servalan's minions arrive."

Within five minutes, the rebels had abandoned Central Security Headquarters.

Within fifteen minutes, the Federation had taken it back.

 

The Federation prisoner who'd been chained to his chair in the basement was not at all sorry to find himself alone in the building. Although his captors had taken care to move him out of earshot of their conversation, he'd deduced from their hasty departure that it would not be long before he was rescued. Unfortunately for him, he was mistaken in his first assumption: he was _not_ alone in the building.

The man whom the rebels had known as Shacklee was listening with equal anticipation for the arrival of Federation troops. He'd been hiding huddled in a small closet, and when he was certain the rebels had cleared out for good, he emerged from his hiding place and made his way back to the room where the first man was located. He snuck up behind that first man and calmly fired a bullet into his brain.

It worked before, he told himself, as he removed the handcuffs and lowered the corpse to the floor, it will work again. He disposed of his gun and carefully proceeded to cuff his own left wrist to the metal grating in front of one of the windows. He waited patiently until he heard the first sounds of Servlan's troopers blasting their way inside.

Then he started screaming for help.

           

Driving to the Spaceport, Jenna and Valis reviewed what to do once they got there. It was decided that Valis would continue in the role of bodyguard just long enough to help get Blake on board the Mark 10. The rebel leader himself was deemed adequately disguised by the huge bandage covering half his face. They had also dressed him in Valis's own street clothes and planned to pass him off as Ambassador Tristella's cousin from Earth, injured in a terrible accident and flying for treatment to the Federation's famed surgical unit on Lunar Space Station XK-41. 

In reality, the medical treatment center they'd be heading for was considerably farther away: a full day's journey at the Mark 10's maximum speed.

Halfway to the Spaceport they parked their ground car so that Jenna could check Blake's vital signs and administer more painkiller. The rebel leader had been fitfully dozing off and on, willing to relax now that Sula's people were out of immediate danger, but finding it physically difficult to do so.

As Jenna carried out the necessary medical ministrations, Valis thought back to Blake's speech about the pitfalls of revenge and to the sight of him bleeding and groaning in agony – and to the sight of him asking leniency for Lars. "You meant it, Blake," he murmured softly. "You bloody well meant it. I can't figure out if you're a saint or a simpleton."

"Oh, you don't know how good that sounds," responded a muffled voice from beneath the bandages.

Valis jerked back in astonishment; he hadn't expected – or intended – Blake to hear. "Eh?" he gulped.

"Don't try to analyze it," Jenna said, as Blake finally lapsed into a profoundly peaceful sleep. "Just be happy that you helped him."

"But how? How did I help him?" Valis asked, bewildered.

Jenna smiled, running a tender hand through the curly head of hair slumped on her shoulder. "You reminded him of someone he's – homesick for," she answered.

                                                *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The space station to which Jenna took Blake was – like the one to which she pretended to be taking him – a highly advanced medical facility. Originally it had been a Federation facility, but at the time of the Intergalactic War, its personnel had been widely dispersed to handle casualties closer to the area of actual fighting, and few had managed to return. In the massive logistical disarray that followed, the Federation simply abandoned the place.

A couple of months later Avalon's people took it over, offering the handful of government employees still on station a choice between re-employment by the Resistance and safe passage to the nearest neutral planet. One or two stayed; the rest elected to leave. But as word of the new rebel stronghold got around, they were gradually replaced by medically trained personnel sympathetic to the Cause.

Still it had been something of a shock for Blake to awaken after surgery and see the familiar bearded face of Docholli peering down at him.  

When they'd parted at Freedom City shortly before the start of the war, the cybersurgeon was heading out on a Trantinian planet hopper in search of a life of continued anonymity. But the war had changed all that. The planet hopper had never reached its destination. Its ison crystal had been damaged in a freak accident, forcing the ship to limp along thereafter at a mere fraction of its already infraluminal speed. Weeks behind schedule, it had wandered unawares into a battle zone, where it had been pelted by a barrage of stray plasma bolts. 

Docholli had been one of a handful of survivors to escape in a life capsule. Picked up by a passing ship from Avalon's fleet and informed of the destruction of Star One, he'd realized he no longer had any reason to run from the Federation, that the secret they'd supposed him to harbor was no longer of the slightest consequence to anyone. And since it was rebels who'd rescued him, and since his disaffection with the Federation had been total for some time in any case, it seemed only natural that he offer his professional services to his new friends. Thus he'd been one of the first of the official anti-Federation doctors to come on station...

It was now several days after Blake's surgery. The bulky pressure dressings had been replaced fairly quickly by a simple eyepatch, and hours earlier the eyepatch too had been discarded. What remained on the surface was an ugly, disfiguring scar. What remained of Blake's vision beneath the surface was what Docholli was attempting to discover. He scrutinized the interior of the eye with his most sophisticated scanning device, then stepped back from the bed with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Blake. I had hoped that once the swelling went down, there might be uninjured fragments of the optic nerve left to build upon. But the damage was just too extensive. Perhaps if you'd gotten to surgery sooner, while you were still on Earth – "

"Remaining on Earth wasn't an option just then," Blake said slyly. "And you needn't look so stricken. You're not telling me anything I haven't already figured out. After all, I have only to close the good eye and see for myself. Or, rather, not see for myself."

"I could do something about the scar at least. Something cosmetic – "

Blake shook his head. "I won't be here long enough for that."

"Well, it needn't be me. Any competent surgeon could – "

"Doctor," Blake cut in, "I'm not going to have the time." He laid a hand on Docholli's arm, as if to console the man who was trying to console him. "Look at it this way. At least I've lost my eye in a better cause than the one for which Travis lost his."

That allusion finally brought a smile to the surgeon's lips. "Ah, Travis, what a character," he chuckled. "Of course he had his good points."

Blake responded with a look that was a combination of amused and appalled. "Not from where I was standing."

"See you later," Docholli grinned, heading for the door.

"If you run into Jenna," Blake called after him, "tell her I want to talk to her."

Docholli ran into Jenna – right outside Blake's door. The pilot knew that this morning's examination of Blake's eye was to yield a definitive prognosis, and her own eyes now asked the question she couldn't bring her lips to utter.

Docholli shook his head sadly.

Jenna sighed. "Is he very depressed?"

The doctor snorted. "Not depressed at all. He's amazing."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"I wonder if there's anything in the galaxy that could crush his spirit."

"If there is, I'm sure I haven't seen it yet." The surgeon continued on his way, and Jenna entered Blake's room.

The rebel leader was sitting in bed, pouring over star charts of the colonized worlds slated to move against the Federation at Sula's signal. "Docholli give you the good news?" he inquired without looking up.

"Uh-huh." Jenna moved to Blake's bedside and pulled up a chair.

 He laid aside what he was working on. "The only real problem I foresee is relearning how to handle a gun in the absence of normal depth perception."

"That's the only problem you foresee."

"It is possible, Jenna," he said, misinterpreting her reaction.

She responded with a barely perceptible smile. "Oh, I'm sure."

"So, what have you got for me?'

"For starters, this."

He took the folder she handed him and examined its contents. "Well, well, well. So I was right about that bastard I threw out of Central Security Headquarters. Shacklee, indeed! The name's Shrinker. Deva's computer identified him from the facsimile of the fingerprints we transmitted. No doubt about it. Photo and all."

"Yes, I've read it," Jenna said. "Clever of him, wasn't it, to lock himself into a punishment cell while Sula's troops were running amok, shooting his colleagues to pieces."

"Diabolically clever," Blake agreed. "I wonder what he's doing now."

"I have something else for you from Deva." There was a gravity in her voice that caused him to lay all thoughts of Shrinker aside and give her his full attention. "You know all that talk that's been going around GP about 're-legalizing' the planet."

"Yes, there are elements of the population in favor of formal affiliation with the Federation. That's nothing new."

"This is." Jenna tossed a second folder into his lap. "A group of representatives from all the plantations got together last week and voted to file a preliminary application for reconsideration of status. That means they get a year to convince the High Council to consider a _formal_ application."

"So?"

"So the High Council would never even entertain such an application under the conditions created by the suspension of the legal code. They'd insist GP clean up its act first. Blake, when word of this gets out, it's going to attract all sorts of unsavory bounty hunter types to the planet. How can we expect to continue operating – ?"

"Jenna, Jenna," Blake broke in, taking hold of her by the shoulders. "You're not thinking. None of this matters."

"It doesn't?"

"No! All of it will be academic in a matter of days. Have you forgotten that by this time next week _our_ people will control the High Council on Earth – pardon me, the People's Council..."

"Blake," the woman said, backing away from him uneasily. "It hasn't happened yet. You can't assume – "

"I _can_ assume! I _do_ assume!"

"But, Blake – "

"It _has_ to happen, Jenna. If it doesn't, we'll have lost the single best opportunity we've ever had to defeat the Federation." _And I'll have lost the best friend I've ever had for nothing._

The bedside chrono alarm sounded then, reminding Blake that he had set it for the time of the next scheduled Federation newscast transmission. He motioned Jenna to readjust the position of her chair and activated the vis-screen built into the wall.

The lead story of the midday news was already beginning. "Preparations continue at Residence One for the President's upcoming banquet," droned the voice of an unseen announcer, as the camera panned over the exterior of the lavish estate where Servalan lived in unrepentant splendor. "Emissaries are expected to attend from every Federated world in the galaxy, many of high ambassadorial rank and some journeying for more than two dozen time units to be here.  Citizens of Alpha standing who have not yet participated in the random drawing for tickets to the banquet have until midday tomorrow to do so."

"That means they haven't filled all the available seats," Jenna interpreted, with a wink.

"Imagine that," Blake returned with comparable mirth. "You mean to say people aren't falling all over themselves with single-minded passion to be present at the gala event?"

"Our Beta, Gamma and Delta citizens," continued the announcer somberly, "will, of course, be able to purchase souvenirs and tokens after the banquet at reasonable prices."

"Five thousand credits for a photograph of Servalan sipping Lipterian brandy," Jenna proposed.

"Sh," Blake said suddenly, nudging her with his elbow – for the screen was now filled with pictures of the carnage at Central Security Headquarters.

"Oh no," Jenna breathed, clutching his arm.

"...a typical example of the terrorists' total disregard for human life," the announcer said, as the camera moved in closer to focus on faces missing ears and hands missing fingers. "We have with us here in the studio this afternoon the sole survivor of this brutal attack. In order to protect him from possible rebel reprisals, he appears in shadow and shall be identified only as 'Investigator X.'" An eerie black silhouette now occupied the screen, the profile distinctive despite the total absence of recognizable facial features.

"Blake, that doesn't look like – "  Jenna broke off, as the heavily disguised guest began to speak.

"And it doesn't sound like him either," Blake said warily. "But you know who it _does_ look and sound like?" His eyes were darting back and forth between the vis-screen and the photograph of Shrinker lying in his lap.

Horrified, the two listened as the increasingly familiar voice spewed forth a richly embellished tale of terror and survival. "I can't praise the President's troops highly enough," it whined in servile flattery. "They charged in fearlessly with total disregard for the possible threat to their own lives. I owe them _my_ life without question. If they hadn't arrived when they did, I might have died of hunger and thirst, still chained to that window grating."

"I don't believe it!" Blake burst out. "That bastard got away with the same ploy twice!" Then the color suddenly drained from his face. "Oh, no!"

"What?"

"Jenna, they said he was the only survivor. That means he must have killed the other one, the one we left tied to that chair. My God, he never left the building at all! He was in hiding the whole time! How could I have been so stupid?"

"Blake, you didn't know – "

The rebel leader's eyes were squeezed shut in self-castigation. "I suspected he worked there. I should have realized he'd be able to disappear into the woodwork and wait us out."

"Blake, you had a few other things on your mind – "

"I should have killed him when I had the chance!"

Jenna emitted a sardonic little snicker. "After lecturing Sula's troops on the importance of not becoming what we're fighting?" Then her tone softened. "Blake, you did what you thought was best at the time. Let it go."

"...Back to work already?" exclaimed the interviewer's voice with exaggerated awe. "So soon after such a harrowing ordeal?"

"We're a bit understaffed at the moment, as you can imagine," Shrinker responded. "Our night staff has been pulling double shifts. I would be derelict in my duty as an officer of the Federation if I did not resume my place at their side."

"Derelict in his duty!" Jenna scoffed. "Too bad we can't send the Federation an anonymous tip that their prize butcher dabbled in defection for a day."

"Just to give you an example," Shrinker continued, "we've a criminal in custody right now who's remained unidentified for five days due to the wanton destruction of our records by the vandalism of the terrorists. In fact, I'll be attending to him as soon as I leave here."

"In that case, we won't detain you any longer," the interviewer finished deftly. "I'm sure I speak for all our viewers when I say that you have the admiration and gratitude of every loyal Federation citizen watching this vis-cast. And now on a lighter note – "

Blake switched off the screen. "You know, I don't get that last bit," Jenna said. "Why don't they just ask the man his name?"

"Maybe he doesn't feel like giving it," Blake suggested wryly.

"For _five days_?"

"That does sound a bit overzealous for a common criminal."

"For anyone," Jenna said firmly.

The rebel leader shrugged. "Well, I feel for the man, of course, but it's nothing to do with us."

"I suppose not."

Blake took her hand in both of his own and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "Jenna, in two days time this will all be over," he said. "Whether my judgment call on Shrinker was right or whether it was wrong will no longer be of the slightest importance. Because in two days time, creatures like him will no longer be controlling the Earth."

 

With his usual capacity for persuading others to defer to him, Blake had taken over the space station's main computer complex and converted it to a military command center. He'd spent hours establishing a series of standby communication links with his allies on the planets poised to respond to the message that Servalan's government had fallen. That message, by his reckoning, was already at least a day late. But the Federation newscast transmissions had conveyed nothing overtly ominous. And they'd conveyed nothing at all about the President's banquet. That bizarre information blackout on what had been touted for weeks as the extravaganza of the year _had_ to mean the plan was on target – hadn't it?

As he continued to wait for Sula's signal, Blake paced back and forth, chewing on a finger, restlessly reviewing the planned sequence to follow (first Deva, then Avalon, then Sarkoff, then Ro, then Del Grant...) till it was burned into his brain like a brand.

Jenna had gone to the landing bay to run a systems check on the Mark 10, to make sure the ship would be ready for takeoff at a moment's notice. Just as well she isn't here, Blake thought. I'm nervous enough for the both of us. He paced a few more times, sucked a few more centimeters of finger, mentally recited his logistical catechism and glared at the chrono on the wall as if it were responsible for the delay. _Come on, Sula. What's keeping you?_

The sound of the space station's priority alarm system startled him out of his single-minded focus. "Attention, all personnel!" It was Docholli's voice booming out between the ear-splitting blasts of the klaxons. "Emergency medical triage and transport team report to the landing bay immediately! A ship has arrived, bearing casualties from Earth – "

Faster than conscious thought could translate the terror those words brought, Blake bounded out the door and down the corridor towards the docking area. When he got there, the evacuation ship was already unloading injured men onto stretchers. One of Docholli's colleagues was moving from stretcher to stretcher, making rapid assessments and barking out orders, indicating which patients were to be taken to surgery immediately, which to medical, and which could wait until the more seriously wounded ones were safely out of the landing bay.

Blake caught a glimpse of Jenna, who'd left the Mark 10 to lend her assistance. She was pushing a stretcher bearing a man whose right arm looked to have been severed at the shoulder by laser fire. She whizzed past him in a dizzying blur. Then he caught a glimpse of a head of thick red hair lying on another stretcher. He dashed over there, praying the patient would not turn out to be...

It was.

"My God, I know this man!" he gasped to the woman pushing the stretcher. "Hob, what happened to you?"

"Servalan..." rasped out a voice wracked with pain. "Shot..."

"Stand aside, Blake," entreated the attending medical technician. "We have to get him to surgery right away."

"No!" the rebel leader exclaimed. "I have to talk to him! I have to know – "

"After surgery," the technician maintained. "This man's been travelling for more than a day with a bullet wound in his chest. He may not live – "

Hearing those words, Hob suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm. "Have to tell him," he sputtered with fierce determination. "Have to tell Blake now..."

"You're too seriously injured," the technician repeated. "You might die if we don't operate –"

"That's _why_ I have to tell him!" Hob insisted. "Please – just give me something to help me talk..."

With a sigh of resignation, the woman wheeled the stretcher into an alcove off the corridor and administered a combination stimulant and painkiller. "Signal someone the instant you're finished," she instructed.

Blake nodded assent, then pulled the door closed behind her, shutting out the continuing sounds of triage and transport. "All right, tell me, Hob," he pleaded. "What happened to the plan? Why hasn't Sula contacted me?"

"Sula's dead," came the shattering answer.

"What?!"

"It's no good, Blake," Hob moaned tearfully – and they were tears of grief and defeat even more than tears of pain. "It's all over. The rebellion's finished."

The walls grew fuzzy and began to sway before Blake's eyes. "No," he whimpered brokenly. "It can't be finished." Then a surge of adrenalin pushed that first wave of visceral weakness aside. "What the hell went wrong?" he thundered. "Tell me everything!"

"The men wanted to cut Servalan's throat on the spot," Hob babbled in hazy memory.  "Should have done it. Should have cut Servalan's throat. Shouldn't have listened to Sula..."

"You _had_ Servalan. You'd taken her prisoner," Blake prompted, trying to keep him focussed.

"Yes," Hob confirmed. "The night of the banquet. Just like we planned. It would have worked, Blake. Should have worked. Servalan's main forces didn't even know we'd taken Residence One. Didn't know the President was our prisoner. We held all the cards. Victory was so close I could taste it. It was going our way until _he_ interfered." With that last articulation, Hob's eyes darkened in hatred.

"He?" Blake repeated. "I don't understand. Who are you talking about?"

"The interloper. The one who murdered Sula." Hob's voice faded as he writhed uncomfortably on the stretcher. Barely audible, he uttered the name: "Kerr Avon."

Blake jumped back with a strangled gasp of disbelief. He turned as pale as the dying rebel soldier lying in front of him.

Hob continued his narrative with eyes staring straight ahead, no longer seeing Blake, seeing only the traumatic pictures in his mind. "We had Servalan chained in the cellar. Sula'd gone down there to check on her, and I was preparing a public statement of resignation for the President to read to all the citizens of Earth. Suddenly Federation troops arrived. I'm still not sure what tipped them off. But we had a decent chance of overcoming them. I know we had...

"I went down into the cellar to fetch Sula. I couldn't understand why she hadn't come back up at the first sound of trouble. She must have heard it. Only as I moved down the stairs, I realized something was terribly wrong. Sula's body was lying there, and there was a man kneeling beside it, and Servalan – Servalan wasn't in chains anymore!"

Now Hob sat bolt upright on the stretcher, his pupils huge and full of remembered horror. "Servalan had a gun. She was pointing it at the man kneeling by Sula's body. When she saw me, she whirled around and fired. I felt a burning pain in my chest, and I started tumbling down the stairs. By the time I hit bottom, the man had disappeared! Servalan was screaming curses. I remained very still so she wouldn't realize I was alive. She must have been convinced she'd killed me because she never even bothered to check. Or maybe – maybe she was just too enraged about that man, that Kerr Avon, to notice."

"She used his name? Servalan used Avon's name?" Blake's voice was tight with anguish. "Is that how you know who it was? Because Servalan said his name?"

"She said: 'I'll have you yet, Kerr Avon. Don't think I won't.' Then she said: 'I suppose I owe you something for setting me free, and for doing me the favor of eliminating that two-faced, treacherous little bitch.' That's when I knew he'd killed Sula." Shaking off the trance he was in, Hob finally looked at Blake again. "Then I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was on the evacuation ship, headed here. It was all we salvaged – a dozen wounded rebel soldiers. _It wasn't enough._ " With those despairing words, Hob sank back down onto the stretcher and drew his final breath...

Blake staggered from the alcove, scarcely cognizant of the corpse he left behind. 

And scarcely cognizant of the living corpse he hauled back to his bedroom either.

 

Over and over again the images created by Hob's words played through his mind. Ceaselessly they assailed his soul with a reality too awful to absorb. The rebels had succeeded in capturing Servalan – _and Avon had set her free._ The rebels had been on the verge of installing Sula as the head of a free, democratic People's Council – _and Avon had murdered her._ The rebellion on Earth had come within a heartbeat of launching a dozen similar rebellions throughout the galaxy – _and Avon, AVON, HIS AVON had somehow managed to torpedo it all._

"Why, Avon? Why? Why? Why?" Blake screamed aloud, pounding the wall with his fists until his knuckles began to swell and turn purple.

Exhausted, he collapsed onto the bed. I'd rather Lars had cut out both my eyes with that knife, he thought in silent dialogue with the absent nemesis of his throbbing nightmare. I'd rather Shrinker had carved the living heart out of my chest. How could you do it, Avon? How, in the name of everything holy, could you _do_ it?

But there was no answer to be found – not in the deepest, darkest corners of his mind. And he knew there never would be.

Black despair swirled all around him. He slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. Dry sobs wracked his huge body. Then not-so-dry sobs. He didn't stop crying for a very long time.

 

Jenna found him hours later, sitting motionless in that bed, his eyes staring aimlessly into the distance, utterly devoid of their usual fire. "Blake?" she said in alarm. "What's going on?"

His head turned slightly, just far enough to look at her. "No one's told you?"

"Well, I've deduced that there were some problems on Earth. But the people I was with weren't exactly in a condition for conversation. So, no, I really have no clear idea."

"It's all off," Blake said flatly. "The takeover at Servalan's residence failed. And Sula is dead."

"What!" Jenna exclaimed. "How? What happened?"

"The one thing Sula herself speculated might: Someone on our side made a really stupid blunder."

The pilot waited for further elaboration. None was forthcoming. "Is that all you're going to say about it?" she asked finally.

"Yes, Jenna, that's all I'm going to say about it."

Those seemingly straightforward words sent a shiver of fear through her. Something in Blake's tone – in Blake's whole demeanor – was radically different from anything she'd ever observed in the man before. It was as if something had closed down deep inside of him, inside his heart, inside his very soul... "I think I'll contact Deva," she said. "Shall I tell him we're coming home?"

Blake nodded stiffly, then turned his back on her, barely noticing when she left the room.  By happenstance, his gaze fell upon the two folders she had given him three days and a lifetime earlier. He lifted one in each hand, as if to compare their symbolic weights, then cast the one on Shrinker aside and opened the one describing Gauda Prime's embryonic "road to legality" plan.

As he read the report, he recalled what Jenna had said about "attracting all sorts of unsavory bounty hunter types" to the planet. For the first time it struck him that there was perverse potential in that idea – that being a bounty hunter could facilitate contact with precisely those elements in society which had most cause to hate the Federation.

To be sure, what he was contemplating smacked of desperation. But desperate times called for desperate measures – and the fiasco on Earth had insured that the times ahead would be desperate for as far into the future as he could see.

Oh, Jenna wouldn't much like what he was planning. That he knew. Klyn and Deva wouldn't much like it either. But he'd convince them that it was necessary, and in the end, they'd go along with it.

Blake laid the folder aside and leaned back against his pillow with a grim smile. The idea of recruiting criminals to fight the Federation wasn't really as far-fetched as it sounded. After all, he'd done it before...


End file.
